The idea of eating exotic food may be hard for some people to stomach. It has the ability to conjure images of strange, small animals you have no desire to eat or bugs coated in chocolate - which we’ll touch on later. The truth is that delicious exotic food dishes are now readily available all over the United States and they’re not as intimidating as you may think. So, skip another boring meal of meatloaf and mashed potatoes and surprise your palette with tasty and exotic foods.

The American stomach is notoriously sensitive and has a tendency to suffer at the hands of some of the more bizarre or spicy ethnic foods. If you are looking to explore exotic foods for the first time, you may want to shy away from anything too drastic like the Philippine dish balut, which is a fifteen- or sixteen-day old fertilized chicken egg. The chicken fetus, which yes, you eat, is complete with partially formed feathers, feet, eyeballs, and blood vessels. Chances are you will never be feeling that adventurous, but oftentimes what turns a regular meal into an exotic food dish is the use of a part of an animal you may not be accustomed to eating. Taking baby steps into the world of exotic foods may be a good idea and nothing will transport your taste buds to a new place like the use of “strange” meats.

Italian food has grown to be pretty common-place here in America and it probably doesn’t seem very “exotic” to many of us, but the type of Americanized Italian fast food you’ve been eating consisting of pizza and pasta with red sauce is not authentic.

Traditional Italian cooking is filled with countless exotic food dishes that may seem unusual at first, but once you taste them they will quickly become some of your most cherished meals. Italian American Chef Mario Batali has been doing his best for years to push traditional Italian peasant food on Americans through his various restaurants and cookbooks and we are finally coming around to it. A perfect example of this would be spaghetti carbonara. We’ve all had this incredibly rich and decadent dish made with bacon, cream and cheese, but it’s not supposed to be a cream sauce at all. The traditional way of making the dish is actually easier and involves less ingredients, though it does involve something many of us are not accustomed to and that special something is called guanciale. Guanciale is a type of unsmoked Italian bacon much like pancetta, but more delicate and considered a delicacy in Central Italy. What makes guanciale different than other kinds of bacon is that it is even fattier and only comes from pig jowls or “cheeks.” After dicing the guanciale and frying it, simply add your cooked pasta to the meat and rendered fat in the pan, toss with raw egg yolks (one per person) and add pecorino romano cheese and cracked black pepper. Nothing beats meals like this which are both comforting, but also a new and exotic twist on the familiar.

American food is often characterized by big slabs of meat or BBQ or meat and potatoes, but many exotic foods utilize the inside of animals just as much as the outside.

Nearly every culture has a dish which involves tripe, which is the lining of the inside of an animal’s stomach. The French have andouille, which is a poached and smoked cold tripe sausage, the Scottish have haggis, which is sheep's stomach stuffed with oatmeal and the minced heart, liver and lungs of a sheep and the Vietnamese have Pho, which is a noodle-based soup that often includes tripe. The tripe of other animals such as goats, sheep and pigs can be used also. Cow tripe is very common in Mexican cuisine. Menudo, a very popular Mexican stew said to be the best cure for a hangover, is nothing but a spicy broth, hominy and large chunks of beef tripe. It is not uncommon to find brain being used in Mexican cuisine either, it can be found in everything from tacos to scrambled eggs.

Some exotic food names can be misleading, especially when it comes to the term “sweetbreads.” Get the image of sweet and gooey pastries out of your head; the official definition for sweetbreads is the “thymus gland or pancreas of an animal younger than one year old.” You will find sweetbreads in many gourmet French restaurants and you will pay a substantial price for these delicacies. A very popular French exotic foods dish is ris de veau sautés, which consists of a calf’s sweetbreads blanched with carrots, celery, shallots, garlic, herbs, wine and vinegar and then dried before being dipped in wheat flour, sautéed in a pan with butter and then served topped with browned butter.

When it comes to pricy and gourmet exotic foods, the French take the cake. Aside from sweetbreads, another very common French delicacy is foie gras, which literally translates to “fat liver.” This particular exotic food also comes with a bit of controversy. The use of foie gras has been restricted in some major U.S. cities because the liver of the duck or goose used for the dish has been intentionally “fattened” by force feeding the animal a controlled amount of corn mash through a tube inserted in the esophagus. The force feeding is said to produce a rich, creamy and buttery flavor that cannot be found in regular duck or goose liver. Foie gras is often sold whole and then sliced and seared as an appetizer, or turned into a mousse, parfait or pate.

Of course there are countless exotic food dishes that don’t include the insides of an animal- though there are dishes that get even more inside than liver and tripe, like roasted bone marrow spread on toast. A seemingly odd yet ridiculously nutritious treat courtesy of Oaxaca, Mexico, is dried out grasshoppers garnished with lime and chili, which can now be found in many upscale, traditional Mexican restaurants. Sushi is another obvious exotic food, but now so commonly consumed it was hardly worth mentioning. Drinks from Taiwan have a rapidly growing following with young Americans, especially a neon purple drink called taro root tea and a similar drink called boba ice milk tea. Both drinks include boba, which are small, round dark balls that are sweet potato tapioca.

The balls are dropped into the bottom of your beverage and sucked up with a huge straw as you drink your tea. There are various kinds of these exotic drinks being sold in coffee shops, specialty shops and donut shops all over the United States They are a delicious and cheap alternative to just about any other cold drink on the market.

If you want to buy exotic foods, your best bet is visiting an ethnic market and exploring each aisle. Many major cities have a Chinatown, a little India, a little Italy, Greek markets or countless Asian markets. You may find exotic treats you’ve never encountered before, but that will quickly become a new favorite. If the idea of seeking out and cooking exotic foods is too intimidating for you, many ethnic markets and neighborhoods have bakeries and restaurants in the area. All it would require is an open mind and a hunger for a new delicious exotic food dish to discover an exciting and tasty new cuisine.

Some exotic foods may seem to border on the bizarre, but for every strange food item you can’t bring yourself to stomach, there are countless delicious exotic food dishes just waiting to be discovered by you. Next time you are out and craving something new and exciting, give an exotic food a chance. Eating food from different cultures is an amazing way to explore the world and a new culture without having to pay for a plane ticket and dig out your passport.

What’s Your Ethnic Foods IQ?Take-out may be your middle name, but how much do you really know about your favorite ethnic foods? Sushi... Chinese... Mexican... Although most restaurants have a menu chock full of mouthwatering meals, do you stick to the same old fare because you don't know any better? Take the ethnic foods IQ quiz to broaden your horizons and please your palate.